1. The ECOWAS Commission has received funding from the International Development Association (World Bank) to finance the costs of the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) and intends to use part of this funding to pay for the services of a consultant (firm).
2. The consultant services concern "market analysis of three strategic regional value chains".
3. The ECOWAS Commission, represented by the RAAA, hereby invites eligible consultants (firms) to express their interest in the provision of the services. This notice calls for firms that are legally constituted and qualified (experience and operational capacity) to carry out the services. To this end, the firm must have the following minimum experience and qualifications:

• have been legally constituted for at least 5 years ;
• have at least five (5) years of successful consulting experience in West African and Sahelian agribusiness and agri-food market operations.;
• have a good knowledge of agricultural, commercial and industrial policies, regional players and business law.

4. To carry out the assignment, the firm must have at its disposal a staff comprising :

• K1: An agro-economist or socio-economist specializing in the analysis of agri-food value chains and agribusiness. He/she should have at least ten years' experience in analyzing forms of coordination between stakeholders in agri-food value chains in West Africa and the Sahel. He/she must have at least five (5) years' good knowledge of agricultural, commercial and industrial policies and regional stakeholders.  He/she must have carried out at least three (3) similar assignments;

He is the Team leader and, as such, he is responsible for the development of the study methodology, the assignment report and its quality. He is the sole contact for the FSRP Coordination Unit based at the ARAA in Lomé.

• K2: An economist or socio-economist specialising in institutional and business economics. He/she must have at least five (5) years' good knowledge of the agri-food business environment in West Africa and the Sahel. They must also have at least ten years' experience in carrying out similar work and at least five (5) years' good knowledge of agricultural and trade policies, business law in West Africa and the Sahel and investment codes.

In particular, these experts will be responsible for steering the study as a whole, dealing with methodological issues and producing the final documents (methodological note, final report and decision support note). 

5. The duration of the assignment is 100 working days for the entire study. See the detailed provisional timetable for the activities to be carried out in point VI of the terms of reference.
6. Within the framework of this assignment, the firm will have to carry out the tasks and supply the products as described respectively in 4.2 and 4.3 of point IV of the terms of reference.
7. Further information can be found in the terms of reference, which can be accessed via the drive link: httpshttps://araacedeao.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/Procurement/EkALHfdbYXRPg33rNN_dqzoBiBNSg1JS4xIMJNkdrwjv-A?e=K9D6IG or download it from the ARAA website www.araa.org in the Opportunities section.
8. Interested firms/firms are invited to draw their attention to Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16 and 3.17 of the World Bank's "Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers", July 2016, revised November 2020
   ("Procurement Regulations"), which sets out the World Bank's policy on conflicts of interest.
9. Firms may join forces with other firms in order to strengthen their respective skills in the form of a joint venture. In the case of a joint venture, all the members of the joint venture will be jointly and severally liable for the entire contract, if selected.
10. Following the evaluation of the expressions of interest, one firm will be selected following the "Selection Based on Consultant Qualifications (SQC)" method as described in the World Bank's Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, July 2016, revised November 2020.
11. The expression of interest files must contain the following elements:

• A letter of expression of interest;
• If the consultant is a consortium, a copy of the consortium agreement or a letter of intent to form a consortium;
• A brochure presenting the firm or consortium (including administrative documents) ;
• Produce information demonstrating that they are qualified and experienced to carry out these services. In this respect, they must provide evidence that they have references for recent and similar services. In order to meet the qualification criteria listed in point 3 above, these consultants must provide tangible evidence and detailed references for all statements made in terms of experience and capabilities, similar assignments, availability of appropriate skills among their staff, etc.
• Each reference provided must be summarized on a project sheet and will only be considered and accepted if the applicant attaches supporting documents indicating the contact details of the contracting authorities in order to facilitate verification of the information provided, the contracts quoted or copies of certificate(s) of satisfactory performance of each contract presented, as issued and signed by the Client.
• A technical proposal including :
  • An understanding of the objectives and expected results of the study and the methodology that the consultancy or consortium intends to use,
  • Mission schedule (fieldwork and production of various documents),
  • Summaries of the CVs of the two consultants, clearly highlighting: (i) their academic and professional backgrounds, (ii) their technical skills, (iii) a list of similar work carried out, as well as the contact details of the referees for each of the assignments indicated.

NB: The technical offer must be concise and must not exceed thirty pages.

• A financial offer clearly indicating the fees and others costs (air tickets, per diems, local transport and communication)

12. Expressions of interest must be submitted no later than July 12th 2024 - at 17:00 GMT by uploading to the Dropbox address https://www.dropbox.com/request/yjcYvgBllcDBQpAOedTF .

The expression of interest must be in the form of a single PDF file. The RAAF reserves the right not to consider applications that do not comply with the above submission requirements.

13. Interested consultants can obtain further information by writing to the following e-mail addresses: procurement@araa.org cc: ctienon@araa.org, mnakorba@araa.org, Lbarnabo@araa.org, with " AMI03-Strategic Value Stream-FSRP" in the subject line.